Sony Masterworks

Tedeschi Trucks Band’s award-winning studio debut Revelator managed to update a tried-and-true formula: Memphis soul meets Southern rock with hard-hitting performances and equally powerful songs. Much of the latter seemed to come from Susan Tedeschi, who has emerged during the last decade as a singular vocal stylist and songwriter, capturing emotional lifts that recall everyone from Bonnie Raitt to younger upstarts like Joss Stone and Adele, but with a sound that’s immediately identifiable – cultivated rasp and all – as hers.

The same holds true, of course, for Derek Trucks. He’s barely 34-years-old and, at this point in his career, it’s not even heresy to speculate that he’s destined to alter the language of the electric guitar even more profoundly than his heroes (Duane Allman and B.B. King, among them). Accolades aside though, Made Up Mind is a more balanced effort than Revelator because it plays to the strengths of both artists.

For every mind-blowing, no-way-did-he-just-play-that slide solo by Trucks – the closing minute of the funk-smacked “All That I Need” is one of many highlights – there’s a goosebump moment from Tedeschi, whether it’s through her sanctified crooning on the bittersweet ballad “Calling Out to You” or the Aretha-inspired ad-libs she brings to the single “Part Of Me,” which Trucks aptly kicks off with a nod to Steve Cropper’s classic “Soul Man” riff.

As for the band, any concerns raised by last year’s departure of bass virtuoso Oteil Burbridge turn out to be unfounded, even though it took four (!) session aces to cover for him. The killer vehicle is “The Storm” – a moody swamp groove that swings hard on an Eastern-sounding melody before it stretches out into a serpentine, psychedelic voodoo dirge. It’s worthy of a vintage late-night throwdown at Electric Lady Studios and circles back to what TTB have attempted – and successfully pulled off – with Made Up Mind. It’s a conscious move to wear all their influences on their collective sleeve, and still make an album that sounds fortified with a vibrant and relentless electricity.